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The importance of sports

Last month, Chatham native Mark Bruner, a researcher at Queen's University, started the first phase of his study on the how social identities formed from sport, through peer interactions, shape the social development of adolescents.

If that sounded kind of confusing, don't be alarmed. Maybe this is the reason people aren't racing out to buy the latest issue of Journal of Applied Sport Psychology or Psychology of Sport and Exercise (both of which have published Bruner's work). It's no secret: academic writing reads like a foreign language.

At journalism school, I was taught to use words that people say in everyday conversation (a rule I clearly broke with my opening paragraph). PhD programs probably teach the opposite - use words that are impossible to say in conversation, and nobody understands.

Thankfully, Bruner was kind enough - and patient enough - to explain his study to me.

Cutting out all of the academic jargon, Bruner is basically looking at how playing on a sports team, and the interactions gained from playing on that team, influences a teenager's behaviour.

Unlike Bruner, I don't have a PhD, but I think I have a good idea of what he's going to find. After all, I started playing soccer when I was four years old and have been playing organized sports ever since.

While playing on numerous sports teams, I forged great bonds with my teammates. We would talk about our sport both on and off the field. Likewise, we would often talk about non-sport related topics both on and off the field. It's nearly impossible to not grow close to teammates when you share the sweet taste of victory and the bitter sting of defeat together. Only a fellow player can know what you're going through after loosing a big game.

When I was 10 years old, I remember seeing a sign on the boards of a hockey arena saying, "Kids in sports stay out of courts." At the time, I thought it didn't make sense. But now older, and I'd like to think a little wiser, I whole-heartedly agree.

Sports teach kids to respect authority. Young athletes learn to take instructions from their coaches and abide by a referee's decision. Arguing with a superior, like as a coach or official, results in punishment.

Playing on a sports team is a large time commitment. Filling kids' time with practices and games keeps them occupied and out of trouble. After all, it's a bored teenager that often has a habit of finding trouble.

Also, experiencing winning and losing teaches kids how to handle both accomplishment and disappointment with honour and dignity.

When I first saw Bruner, who was at Chatham-Kent Secondary School conducting research, I was surprised. Expecting a grey-haired, blazer-wearing professor taking notes from the sideline, I was shocked to see a young man in his early thirties, wearing a hoody, participating in drills with the junior boys football team.

I learned Brunner is no stranger to sport. As a student at Chatham Collegiate Institute, he played basketball, football and soccer. So it's safe to say he's not an out-of-touch academic.

Bruner clearly understands that playing on a sports team is an invaluable life lesson. Hopefully his findings will shed some light on an important issue and encourage even more parents to enroll their children in sports.